Evelyn Salt (played by Angelina Jolie) was accused of being a spy in North Korean and was being tortured when the movie opened. Through the efforts of her boyfried Mike Krause (played by August Diehl) he was able to pressure the US Government to arrange for a prisoner exchange. During this time she still denies being a CIA operative and this was the time when Krause finally proposed marriage.
For the next two years of marriage, Salt still worked secretly as a CIA operative when a Russian Defector Oleg Orlov (played by Daniel Olbrychski) landed in her office. He wanted to defect and it's Salt's job to corroborate his story prior to accept Orlov's pleas for political asylum. During the interrogation Orlov mentioned about deep sleeper Russian agents being trained and inserted into US society hoping that on Day X, they will be activated to serve the Russian nation. That on the same day, these sleeper agents will assassinate the Russian President while attending the funeral of the American Vice President. Orlov then reveals the name of the sleeper agent tasked to assassinate the Russian President, it was Evelyn Salt. Everyone in the room was startled by this revelation and they tried to contain Salt in the CIA premises. Fearing for her husband's safety, she escaped and tries to find her husband whom she later knew was kidnapped.
Orlov likewise escaped while being transferred to a holding cell and later vanished. Orlov's surfacing at the CIA office was merely a trigger for sleeper agent Salt. While on the run, she prepares for the "assassination" of the Russian President and she did. She got caught in the process but by sheer skill, she was able to escape and proceed to the Russian safe house run by Orlov.
To prove her loyalty to the mission, there in the safe house was her husband then in front of her, had him killed. Showing no reaction from Mike's death, Orlov was convinced of her loyalty, proceeded to instruct her on the part of her mission. To meet up with another sleeper agent Shnaider (played by Corey Stoll) who was tasked to bring her to the White House. Shnaider then made a suicide attack on the US President to force an evacuation to the underground bunk, with Salt following.
While trying to get into the Bunker, Salt then found out that her CIA co worker Ted Winter (played by Liev Schreiber) was inside and is a sleeper agent as well. He killed everyone inside the bunker except for the US President whom he kept alive. Winter's mission was to activate and launch nuclear missiles against Tehran and Mecca to incite a retaliation of the Muslims against the United States.
Salt tried to coaxed Winter to open the door to the bunker when he later found out that the Russian President whom Salt "assassinated" was deemed alive and well. He then doubted Salt's loyalty and he did not let her in. Salt then was able to physically get into the bunker and aborted the launch of the nuclear missiles when American Secret Service agents were also there to rescue the American President.
As Salt was being escorted out of the bunker, Winter grabbed a pair of scissors hoping to kill her to keep his identity secret. As Salt passed him by, instead of Winter lunging at her, she was able to hook her handcuffs on Winter's neck and strangled him. She was then was whisked off to a waiting helicopter to be interrogated off site while enroute, she was able to convince CIA Counter Intelligence Officer Darryl Peabody (played by Chiwetel Ejiofor) to release her and have her track down other sleeper agents.
The movie is a great spy thriller and its story is rich with back stories and establishment plot points. This is another Jason Bourne type of a movie worthy of sequels. The movie is an origin story of sorts and we were hoping to that we get to see more of Evelyn Salt. Sadly no sequels came out for reasons we don't understand.
We haven't seen Angelina Jolie lately in movies so seeing her in this gives us another taste of action from her. We love her in Mr and Mrs Smith so we know she would do fairly well in this one. Supporting actors here are likewise great as they held up their roles pretty well, making the story smooth and the scenes emotional keeping us well within the film. The plot was typical of a spy thriller particular to a sleeper agent but as we said earlier, we get a sense of an origin story here. A plot to start a war is not original and averting it is not as well. All was well to end the story there but when our heroine mentioned that there are others like her out in the open, and that she promises to find them, we then surmised that our story does not end with the saving of the American President and the world.
Currently showing on Netflix, we fervently wish that a sequel be made on this character. Its seldom we see female leads doing this kind of shit ala Jason Bourne and we love see more of this.
